How was the initial allocation of the US House of Representatives decided?
Upvote:1
The allocation of the representatives appeared to be by "population." But the actual numbers appear to have been affected by a different view of the population than the 1792 census, as reflected in the "quotas" of the Continental Army units for each state. Under this scheme, the respective state quotas were as follows:
On September 16, 1776, the Continental Congress passed the "eighty-eight battalion resolve," which called for each state to contribute regiments in proportion to their population. (The terms regiment and battalion were virtually interchangeable at that time since nearly every Continental Army regiment consisted of a single battalion). The quota of infantry regiments was fixed at 15 each from Massachusetts and Virginia, 12 from Pennsylvania, 9 from North Carolina, 8 each from Connecticut and Maryland, 6 from South Carolina, 4 each from New York and New Jersey, 3 from New Hampshire, 2 from Rhode Island, and 1 each from Delaware and Georgia."
"New York" at the time, reflected only "upstate" New York. The reason was that New York City was under British control at the time, and was pro British anyway, and therefore could not be counted on to supply its pro rata share of troops to the Revolutionary war effort. At any rate, New York state's representation appears to have been counted without its New York City population in 1787,
It's probable that the above quotas were also based on the "white" population of each state. (Black slaves were not expected to become soldiers.) The subsequent "three fifths" compromise to the U.S Constitution enlarged the populations of the southern states by adding "three fifths" of the number of black slaves to the final count (the northern states had few of these). Thus, Virginia in the 1792 census stood "head and shoulders" above all the northern states (as opposed to "first of equals" with Massachusetts and, to a lesser extent, Pennsylvania), as in the 1776. Just about all the other southern states (Delaware, Maryland, North and South Carolina, and Georgia) benefited.
One issue is that we are comparing apples to oranges to pears. There were 88 regiments in 1776, 65 delegates in 1787 and 102 representatives in 1792. So each state's allocation should be looked at as a percentage of the total, not absolute numbers. Under this scheme, Virginia, for instance, had a representation of 17% (15/88) in 1776, 15% (10/65) in 1787, and 19% (19/102) in 1792.
One possibility raised in the comments was "tax: issues. If so, these would have been reflected in the above troop quotas. And the three-fifths compromise also increased the tax base of the southern states, and may have raised their representation in that manner.
I cannot explain why Massachusetts appears to have been underrepresented in the Constitutional (1787) allocation, unless it was tax issues. North Carolina appears to have been underrepresented as well. They had less of a footprint in the Revolution than their population implied. And perhaps they contributed either proportionately fewer troops or fewer taxes, or both, than other states.
More post
- 📝 Did the French Resistance kill civilians?
- 📝 How much has U.S. currency inflated since 1792?
- 📝 Were there any pilots that declined to carry out the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 Turko-Mongol horse tactics and Western European response
- 📝 Did German win any victories between Normandy and Bulge?
- 📝 Why did the Ming treasure fleet voyages end?
- 📝 In the United States government, has there been cases that electoral colleges don't vote for the candidate the majority of their state voted for?
- 📝 Was there significant interbreeding between Romans and Native Britons?
- 📝 Who was the shepherd that discovered the Gobekli Tepe?
- 📝 What is the history of the university asylum law?
- 📝 Why would people join a bloc party?
- 📝 What was Justice Louis Brandeis's opinion on eugenics?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union protest against Italy building or acquiring submarines after WW2?
- 📝 To what extent were religious groups persecuted in the Soviet Union?
- 📝 What stood behind Maria Theresa's forestry policy?
- 📝 Since when and why do some academic publishers use, prefer or enforce endnotes instead of footnotes
- 📝 Did Adolf Hitler ever address the fact that his own appearance was almost an exact opposite of what he considered the ideal Aryan appearance?
- 📝 When did the terms, 1-point, 2,-point, 3-point, etc... perspective come into use?
- 📝 Were any of Queen Victoria’s portraits widely publicised?
- 📝 Was Frederick Douglass right that in his day 'religious slaveholders are the worst'? If so why would this be?
- 📝 What colors were used as paint in the construction of the ziggurats in early Sumer?
- 📝 What was the area of Nazi Germany at its height?
- 📝 How did US anti-Irish sentiment decline?
- 📝 Is there any historical basis for the red/white color scheme of the Assassins?
- 📝 Were railway guns ever critical in any battle during WWI and WWII?
- 📝 Does Taleb's claim of epidemics with a death count of >1,000 being in the lower hundreds (in the last 2,500 years) seem accurate?
- 📝 Is there an example of one picture painted by different painters?
- 📝 Historically, was the War of 1812 ever called by another name?
- 📝 Are historians required to memorize or be knowledgeable of every significant event in history?
- 📝 Did Bamako exist as a major settlement of trade and culture during the Mali empire?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How was the initial allocation of the US House of Representatives decided?
- 📝 How and why was the boundary between West and East Berlin decided to be where it was?
- 📝 Was the house of representatives really as rowdy a place as it is portrayed in the 2012 film Lincoln?
- 📝 How was the ceremonial mace presented to unruly members of the US House of Representatives?
- 📝 How serious was Fermat's statement about the ancients?
- 📝 How and when was the modern company ownership structure invented?
- 📝 How was the United States able to produce excellent tanks in 1942?
- 📝 How popular was the Soviet Union?
- 📝 How difficult was to escape from a naval battle after engaging into one during the Age of Sail?
- 📝 How likely is it that any non-Celtic language was spoken in the British Isles when the Romans invaded?
- 📝 How significant was the Fall of Constantinople as an event leading to the Age of Exploration?
- 📝 How difficult was it to spoof the sender of a telegram in 1890-1920's in USA?
- 📝 How was the modern geographic boundary between Europe and Asia decided?
- 📝 How was the Luftwaffe able to destroy nearly 4000 Soviet aircraft in 3 days of operation Barbarossa?
- 📝 What time of day was the White House burned in August of 1814?
- 📝 How common was smoking in first half of the 20th century?
- 📝 What was lost when the British burned the White House in 1814?
- 📝 How advanced was the satellite technology during the Yom Kippur War?
- 📝 How did the monks whose job was to copy books react to Gutenberg's printing press?
- 📝 How close was the Soviet Union to collapsing during WW2?
- 📝 Before the Land Bridge Theory, how was human presence in the Americas explained?
- 📝 How was life in the Iron Age different from life in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 How was beer production affected by the war during WW2?
- 📝 How was armour rusting in the rain handled throughout history?
- 📝 How common was marriage between nobles and peasants in the Middle Ages?
- 📝 Approximately how much travel time was saved by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869?
- 📝 How was the USA able to win naval battles in the Pacific?
- 📝 How was Israel able to build a powerful military within days of the formation of the state?
- 📝 How was Martin Luther King Jr. viewed by white Americans at the time?
- 📝 How wide-spread was antisemitism in the USA during WWII?